The town caught fire in several places, shells crashed and burst, and solid shot rained like hail.

There was no indication of panic. The broken files marched back in steady step. The effort was nobly made and failed from the blows that could not be fended.

In the case of the armies at Fredericksburg it would have been, to say the least, very hazardous to give counter-attack, the Federal position being about as strong as ours from which we had driven them back.

Bad as was being shot by some of our own troops in the battle of the Wilderness, - that was an honest mistake, one of the accidents of war, - being shot at, since the war, by many officers, was worse.